Dream Theater Present ‘The Gift of Music’

Dream Theater are back with new music and it's pretty epic! Would you expect anything less? The band just premiered a brand new clip for "The Gift of Music" over at Rolling Stone, and the video can be seen in full above.

As you can see, "The Gift of Music" clip centers on a futuristic society where mechanical surveillance hovers ever knowingly over the world below. It's all part of a larger concept that plays out over two acts consisting of 34 tracks in total. The collection, known as The Astonishing, revolves around multiple characters, some of which have been revealed at the band's specially designed website for the disc, and is essentially a rock opera.

In addition to the band's highly respected musicianship, the album finds the group collaborating with a full orchestra, multiple choirs and a number of unorthodox instruments, while calling upon noted conductor and string arranger David Campbell to help in overseeing the whole thing.

Guitarist John Petrucci told Rolling Stone, "The idea to do a concept album as a band felt right. The last one we did [1999's Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory] was about 15 years ago, and it really felt like we were in a good place to do this. I knew that what needed to happen, first and foremost, is that we had to have a story to base this on, because the idea of basing an album off of a loose concept or something that was sort of arbitrary, that didn't interest me at all. I wanted this not only to be a concept album, but really to write a full show. And to have all the elements in place, the story needs to drive that. We needed to have the storyline, a plot, places, characters, maps — you name it."

He went on to add, "I'm a huge fan of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, so I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go. But it was a matter of really diving into it and working on it, revising and revising again, and working on it every day until I had something solid."

As has been previously reported, Dream Theater have vowed to play The Astonishing in full on their upcoming European tour. The guitarist states, "Dream Theater has been touring forever; we've played the different stadiums and arenas, ice halls, gymnasiums and whatever. We wanted to make this different — we wanted to make this special. And so as long as people know that going into it, I don't think anybody is going to show up in a Dream Theater shirt, saying, 'Why didn't they play 'Pull Me Under?'' They're going to totally understand what we're doing."

Look for Dream Theater's The Astonishing, expected to drop on Jan. 29.

See Where Dream Theater's Images and Words Ranks Among the Top 50 Metal Albums of All Time

You Think You Know Dream Theater?